The primary reason for this trip to Japan is to take part in the Evo Japan tournament. I don't expect to get anywhere, but it's more just to say that I've been and attempt to meet and greet some of the old guard that I used to communicate with on the Tekken forums nearly 15 years ago. The other reason is to source Japanese Xbox 360 and find some games to go with it. These are going to be hard to find for a few reasons, 1) I still haven't figured out how stock is organised in Japanese stores... Alphabetically? Nope, 2) The titles will be in Japanese so I'm going to be relying on Google images to show me covers and to pick them that way. Following is the list of games that I'm going to attempt to find (please don't judge me on the type of game they are... it's just for the GS I swear).

Completion number five for the year already, but it doesn't feel justified. Recently I purchased a handful of ACANEOGEOfighting titles in an attempt to boost myself into the Top 10 for Fighting games in Oceania before the end of the year. This didn't happen due to many different reasons, but I have turned my focus back on them in an attempt to provide a buffer for the 250k goal that I set for myself. As I mentioned before, to obtain this I would have to get 200ish Gamerscore each day to reach the goal by the end of the year (it is actually 224 to be exact, I think it started at 250 when the goal was set). Due to my EvoJapan plans, gaining Gamerscore while roaming isn't going to be easy thing to do, so I'm trying to get as much as possible before I go so that it will give me a nice buffer.

Please forgive me if I've played on that Dr Strangelove subtitle before, it just felt right to reuse for this. This year like many years before has starting off hectic as always. With my trip to Evo Tokyo now less than a month away, organisation (I mean last minute panicking) is going on and well, I also decided to throw in a few goals that were going to eat away at what ever free time that I had. So onto the goals, that I really hope to accomplish this year...

When I first saw the trailer for this game back in 2015 (I think on an E3 trailer reel), I was disappointed at first that it wasn't to be released on Xbox, but still somewhat interested by the concept and the general feel of the game. When it was later announced for Xbox I couldn't wait to play it, having not looked at any reviews since that initial glimpse. A while after it's release I was going through some of my backlog which had contained a handful of walking simulators. The preachy narrative of those really put me off playing any other walking simulators, so when it came to finally starting Firewatch after my "No new games in 2016" stint, the initial dialogue caused me to bail on it. I put the game down and didn't look at it again until near the end of 2017.

This game was shattered within a few days of playing it. I couldn't stop playing it, even through the awkward scenes where you have to find out where Classi is (oh you'll know the scene when it happens, I don't want to spoil it). During that scene I wondered how it got through the classifications board when entire scenes from the previous game were removed, don't get me wrong those scenes were over the top and fairly vile, but the subject matter of this one was a little more offensive than the previous ones. To add to my confusion, why is it ok for a child to inject themselves but it's not ok to use syringes in other games? Has something happened to the classifications guidelines that I'm unaware of?

For Extra Life this year, I'll be focusing on moving up the Fighting games (Oceanic) leaderboard on TrueAchievements. These boards recalculate at 7AM GMT each morning so I'll try to record my placement increases before the 2nd session each night.

Ultimate Head to Head always likes to throw me curve balls when it comes to the achievements that it picks for the matchup, but I wasn't expecting to go up against someone like OzBundyBoy first round. For once the achievement list wasn't as bad as I had previously seen from this event, but it wasn't lacking those few achievements that seem to haunt me every event... You have completed Disc X. from Lost Odyssey and anything really from Eternal Sonata. From what OBB told me later on, procrastination and sickness prevented him from competing so I welcome the challenge again some day.

There was only one quest related mission that I needed to finish in the base game, but it would require collecting 30 bottles. I decided to head off and start collecting the Bobbleheads that I had missed. Luckily there were only two potentially missable ones that I hadn't screwed up storyline wise so I grabbed them first. I continued to wander the wasteland for another hour or so locating another 6 before I had grabbed half of the collection. Along the way I was able to net a few Quantum Cola bottles, so I should only need to collect another 10 more. Fawkes and I were also able to reduce the kills needed for the 300 humans killed achievement by about 30 through random encounters while Bobblehead hunting.